


Dreamland

by TheRogueLibrarian



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Anachronistic at times, Apathy, Author Dies Of Embarrassment In The Tags, Badly Written Smut, Blood Magic, Canon-Typical Slurs, Confusion, Death Eaters, Dissociation, Distopian Future, Dumbledore Is Suspicious As Hell, F/M, Future Fic, Gimme My Potions Book Back Severus Snape, Harry Is Squicked But Keeps Coming Back For More, Holy Mamma, House Rivalry, I Hate/Love James Effing Potter Lily Evans, I Just Want To Eat Breakfast In Peace Peter Pettigrew, I've Had Enough Of My Idiot Friends Remus Lupin, Identity Problems, Imprisonment, Is It Incestuous Since Sirius Was His Godfather?, Is It Older Man/Younger Man Since Harry Is Mentally Ancient?, Love Triangles, M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Mistaken Identity, Murder, Mutism, No Glasses Harry Potter, Oblivious James Potter, Panic Attacks, Past Fic, Promiscuous Sirius Black, Sardonic Harry Potter, Secret Identity, Secret Relationship, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporal Distortion, That Kid Looks A Lot Like James, The Sorting Hat Knows All, Time Travel, Torture, When You Decide To Write Tags Instead Of Plot, lol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2019-06-23 00:42:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15594432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRogueLibrarian/pseuds/TheRogueLibrarian
Summary: Harry Potter, prisoner and beloved of Bellabee, falls into yet another one of his torturous dreams... only, this time, is it real?orWicked Time Traveller Silas Black... I mean Harry Potter... uhh Mute Boy Who Refuses To Disclose Rank... I mean This Kid That Looks A Lot Like James, goes faffing about where he has no business. Watch him as he deals with his burgeoning attraction for a man who had substituted his father, and burgeoning definitely non-attraction (leave me alone James) for the man who had actually been his father. Why is time so goddamned slippery?





	1. When Sleep is so Torturous

 

Harry sobbed against the dungeon wall, eyes closed, animal sounds of pain escaping his mouth as his newly healed wounds were reopened, and scabs ripped from their seams. Blood leaked down in rivers from his back and onto the floor in a disgusting puddle that made bile rise in the back of his throat. He should have been used to it by now, Harry thought, a fog crowding his mind as he floated away from the pain. In the beginning he had fought the fog, thinking it some magical trick to enslave his mind, but now he took solace in it each time his jailers returned. In the fog he was bodiless, separated from his injured self who was screaming outside the fog, there was no injury, no feeling, no pain. Harry's arm was not his arm when he was in the fog, it was an arm that he could not truly feel.

 

Bellatrix's cruel and sadistic laughter echoed through the cell as she whipped him, one of her milder techniques of torture. Perhaps she had had a happy day, and that was why she went slightly easier on him. Harry knew he was not the only prisoner, when first imprisoned he had stumbled past many cells, but since he never heard nor saw another living soul his whole existence revolved around himself and Bellatrix.

 

He mused that his whole world was in this cell, he knew every inch of it. He knew how many cracks there were on the ceiling. He knew where the smudges of faeces from past inmates lay. Harry was dulled to the smell, he barely recognised it any more, and what had once set him coughing now felt like clean musky air that he cherished, especially on the days where they practiced water torture. That sent a thrill of fear through him as he remembered when they were training new Death Eaters in _that technique_ , Harry had almost killed himself from his abstinence of liquids altogether after _that experience_.

 

He knew where he slept, which wall was his favourite, the rough texture of unpolished stone under his fingers. Harry recognised the warm spot of the room, from when his blood would cool and no longer feel pleasant to his always cold body. He knew where his crapping corner was, and his eating corner. Harry even had a little recovery spot which was just lovely, it smelt a little better than the rest of the cell and he could swear there was some sort of green field on the other side of the wall, something beautiful, he was sure. Sometimes he would lift his hand to the wall and feel the life that pulsed through the wall.

 

He knew where he could hook his fingers into the _wall grooves_ , which had been made from scratching fingernails until there was something to hold onto. He also knew where he could trim his nails.

 

Harry shivered slightly against the wall, the sharp edge of the whip coming down on his back with a sharp smack. Bellatrix giggled in that insane, but ultimately endearing way of hers,

 

“Giving up so soon, _Potter_?”

 

Harry thought he might be in love. Her wild and tangled locks, the black tufts that reminded him of Sirius, the slightly mad sheen that reminded him so much of Luna's. Bellatrix wasn't that bad, she called him Potter after all, and sometimes she would come and listen to him while he screamed. Well, sure, she was the one to cause the screams but, everyone needs a hobby.

 

Sometimes he cleaned, which let him fall into a deeper fog, like the one he had used at the Dursleys. Sometimes he would sweep all the blood into the faeces corner, and brush himself off. Harry could feel the skin tearing as he cleaned himself, but it was better to control the hurt in his opinion, only sometimes. He didn't want to loose too much blood, or he would faint...

 

Harry didn't like sleeping. The terror of falling into that world of unknown, of tasting the good in life only to have it dredged away when he woke, the beautiful feel of soft skin and clean clothes, the smell of fresh food, the warmth of other humans, the feel of when his eyes opened and he knew it had only been a dream. The despair that fell down, the concrete in his limbs as he knew it was not real, the days when he drifted into not knowing what was real, if he was real, if Bellatrix was real.

 

Harry moaned,

 

“I love you Bellabeeeeeee.”  
  


Bellatrix snarled, hitting the whip down even harder, so hard that his weak and empty bones lost their support and dropped him into the warm puddle of blood. She was feisty, it was one of the things he liked about her, she wasn't afraid to speak her mind or hurt him. Bellatrix had curved hips to die for, crinkled skin with character, a _wildness, a freedom_ that hung about her like her bloodied blouse. She was incandescent in the small light that she brought with her when she tortured him.

 

Bella _brought the light_ , without Bellatrix Harry was only in darkness, she was his world.

 

“I'll show you what _love is_.”

 

She howled, and Harry felt a mad smile grace his lips as she brought out her wand. God, he loved her wand. She showed him that _magic was real_ , that _Harry had magic_. She was a reminder of everything he loved in the world, she was his bridge to the outside. He didn't know what he would do without her.

 

“ _Crucio_.”

 

She whispered malevolently, a red streak of _light_ coursing across the room and hitting Harry square in the back. He shuddered against the ground as the pain started, and felt his mind leave him once again. Harry was one with oblivion, was staring into the sun, the pins and needles that pushed their way into his skin were not there, they were only figments of a dream. He flew, out with the birds, bright light of the meadow surrounding him, the blue of the sky. Dark magic coursed through his veins like a drug as the pain overwhelmed him, he saw through the fog a man arching with pain and screaming. Harry lifted a hand from the non being up to his throat and felt the scream underneath it, it thrummed like a bee's buzzing, it hummed with the vibration of pain. He basked in it, the insanity of his world, of the pain.

 

His strings were cut and he fell down, back to the ground of the cellar. Bellatrix smiled as if she had not just gifted him with the most vibrant of feelings, it was a cruel smile with many shark teeth. Harry could hardly believe he had despised the red light at first, his old self had not been thankful for the _light_ , he had not loved the feel of adrenalin in his veins, of the clouds, of the bright light that flooded his senses like the pain.

 

Harry was still shivering on the ground as she twirled the wand in her fingers. He knew Bellatrix was as drunk as him, he could see it in her eyes, the mad Sirius sheen, the biting of her lips. Harry knew she wished to moan with the feeling of magic, just like him. There was a darkness that surrounded her, an aura that Harry could not escape, something he feared, but there was also a passion, a burning, a _light_.

 

“ _Fugit autem mendacium_.” Bellatrix whispered with an evil smile, and Harry screamed as he felt the spell hit.

 

“No, please no, anything bu-”

 

Harry pleaded to his merciless captor as she grinned a wicked grin. _Sleep_ , his worst enemy.

 

…...................

 

Soft sheets caressed his skin, and Harry was instantly on edge. He kept his eyes closed, not wishing to live through this again, but knowing it was ultimately pointless. Harry would always eventually give in, and then the torture would start again. He tentatively rubbed a hand over his arms, feeling the absence of the ever present scars, the smoothness that simply did not belong. There were no markings of his love, no carved incantations and words to bring him to reality.

 

He opened his green eyes slowly, the wrong feel of the bed he slept in making him nauseous. Harry let himself take in the grand expanse of the room, he was in a double bed, hangings pulled around him, a warm presence that he could not deny lying next to him. All his pains were gone, they were phantoms in his mind, a ghostly ache that no longer existed. Harry sat up slowly, fearing the worse as he let his body relax.

 

The non being, as he liked to call it, was the worst torture he had ever experienced. It was a light spell that cast the person into a deep sleep, into a land of dreams, of _pleasant dreams_ that were so realistic that they would eventually believe them to be true. Bellatrix would cast this spell only on special occasions, to bring Harry to believe that he was not a prisoner, but a free person with a good life.

 

Harry always fell for it in the end, but today he just couldn't deal with it. He wanted to pretend even if it would tear him apart later.

 

He lifted his hand, so as to brush hair from his face, when he came across the _I must not tell lies_ scar. Harry paused, so he was at least fifteen, and his life had occurred to a similar experience. He looked up to the hangings registering the colour red, Griffindor, okay. He felt uncomfortable with another person in the bed with him, but ultimately let himself relax. For now he would enjoy the non being, seeing as it ended to soon.

 

A faint part of his mind screamed that it was the non being making him feel so at ease. Harry squashed that voice down, used to stray voices, but ultimately not wanting to deal with it now. Sometimes the non being allowed him to fall into the trap himself, and sometimes it sped things along.

 

“Potter?”

 

A rough and husky voice murmured, and Harry turned himself until he was looking straight into the silver eyes of Draco Malfoy. There was fear in them, but also excitement, as they gazed into the depths of the naked body across from them. He said,

 

“Hi there.”

 

Draco let out a surprised laugh, his voice softened, but a slightly pale sheen to his skin that let Harry know that his 'enemy' was simply hysterical. He asked, as if in shock,

 

“Did we...?”

 

Harry lifted up the sheet, seeing his naked skin, before pulling his head back to the surface. He murmured,

 

“It would seem so.”

 

 

 


	2. When We Fall for Love

“What are you so afraid of Potter?!”

 

Draco yelled as Harry stared absently at his latest Potions assignment. It had been three months since he had been deposited into the non being. He had grown accustomed to a certain way of life once again, a terrifying life of three meals a day, friends that smiled and hugged, petty Hogwart secrets, and rivalries that felt incomplete. Harry could feel the twinkle of Dumbledore's eyes every time he entered the Great Hall. It all felt so.. real, but it always did.

 

He and Draco had been fucking in secret for months, after that initial encounter together. It was sixth year, and Harry did not feel guilty for seeing someone who was essentially a child since none of this was real. He closed his eyes stiffly, breathing deeply as the words hung in the air like Bellatrix's presence.

 

Harry hadn't felt that terrible burn in so long, that now he almost lusted after the feeling, the total control, the pain that seared his senses until he was as mad as the man on the moon.

 

Their relationship had progressed, they had shared many sweet conversations, inside jokes, Quidditch seeker competitions. Harry and Draco were close, and that was what Harry feared the most. He knew the non being wanted him to grow attached to the people of this world, to fall in love over and over until his heart was only a shattered thing. There was so much he loved about Draco, but instead of accepting it he let the fog fall over him and prevent him from the dangerous feelings.

 

Draco's eyes were the same as Bella's, except they were soft in places where hers were sharp. His skin was so soft, so warm against his own, his breath felt like a butterfly's caress against his cheek, and his tears felt so real against Harry's shoulder. Harry baked, something Draco could not at first believe, and baked well into the night, cakes, pastries, buns, chocolate swirls, muffins, cupcakes, tarts, pies, creamed delights. Harry baked for he could not sleep, he baked so he could eat the sugar which he knew was not real, with the fingers which were not his own, and the eyes that shone too brightly to be real.

 

Magic felt so bright under his skin, but yet it was not quite right, it was too bright and light, it was too innocent in Harry's heart. Harry's magic did not want to hurt a living soul, whereas the cracked magic back with his real body wanted destruction of everyone who had ever harmed its owner, it wanted the chains that held it to burn under the pressure of its rage.

 

Draco had a certain elegance about him, a way he walked, the confidence in his hips, the lusted way his eyes burned as he looked into Harry's. He fucked like a god too, so much that virginal Harry Potter could almost believe it to be real. Bellatrix had never been one for sexual torture, and had left that part of Harry untouched, had left Harry with something that only made him love her more.

 

How could he love Draco when he was such a pure soul?  
  


Draco whispered, holding Harry close, his dainty hand holding Harry's scarred one,

 

“I don't understand why, why do you hate me so much Harry? Why am I so terrible that you would never want to date me?”

 

Harry numbly lifted his hand out of Draco's, reaching over to his quill to write with it. It wasn't real, so why did he feel so guilty. Was it because he had only ever wanted to be loved? By a family? By a love? Wasn't Bellatrix enough? He felt tears burn at his eyes as Draco leaned against him, so mournful, so sad.

 

He could remember the late nights they spent together, the foreign addictive feel of another body against his, the naïve whispers of a worried Draco about the war, how lonely he was and how complete someone, anyone, else made him feel. The lights that shone above them like flickering stars, the hope he inspired somehow with even one person, the feeling of being _needed_ by someone. Harry's chest ached as he kept his expression stiff.

 

He didn't want to go, and if he accepted Draco's advances he would be sent away, and this dream world would disappear under his fingertips. Warm digits drifted over his back, soothing with gentle touches like the lapping of warm water against his skin, Harry sighed sadly. He couldn't get too attached.

 

“Okay Draco.”

 

A kiss was his reward. And Harry already knew the consequence.

 

…...

 

Harry let a smile grace his lips as Draco dabbed cake icing upon his nose, and then kissed it off with a quick peck. A warm feeling bloomed inside him at the saucy look in his boyfriend's eyes. Summer came in a few days, and Harry knew that this year he would not be left at the Dursleys, that he had recovered from that terribly real nightmare.

 

For so long he had believed that he truly was just in a dream-world, but now he knew it wasn't true. It couldn't be. He was _real_ , this was _real_ , he knew that with all his heart. Just like he knew he loved Draco with all his heart.

 

The world fell out from beneath him, and Draco's eyes widened in shock. Harry felt tears in his eyes.

 

 _No_.

 


	3. When Time is Slippery as Heck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more chapter in the future, with some flashes in other times, and then we begin in the Marauders Era! I'm excited, haha, and I've definitely made Harry more sardonic than he has any right to be, lol.

Bitterness burned sharply as Harry felt himself return to his wrecked body. He smiled in a gritted way, feeling the crusted feel of blood between his teeth – like sand, _not that he had ever been to the beach_. Tears streaked down his face with much wasted water, and Harry fought the urge to howl. He was so used to heartbreak, to falling for someone he could never have, before being returned to disillusionment, it burned in his chest with a hot fire he couldn't quench. Everything he had ever loved about Draco was not real, Draco _was not real_.

 

...he was probably just another mindless Death Eater, who didn't even remember Harry from his school days. He would probably jeer if Harry ever mentioned baking.

 

His bones were stiff, and creaked rebelliously as Harry tried to straighten himself, he was lying in a puddle of dried blood, and couldn't help but wonder how long it had been, how long he had been taunted with the non being, the torture that pulled at his heart. He let fingers trail through his hair, before he mercilessly grabbed and tore a thick thatch from his scalp. It burned. It burned _so good_ , and Harry grinned a toothy grin with mad dancing eyes. He brought the hair out in front of his face, it was no longer than before, he couldn't have been in the non being any longer than a few days.

 

A sob tore from his throat again, clawed out from his hyperventilating chest and cracked mind, it spilled out in front of him like saliva. The dark around him was _so dark_ , it was _so rancid_. It smelt of sick and shit and blood, it scratched with needy contempt at his scabbed over skin, it tore at him. Harry curled up into a tight ball, his head resting in the crevasse between his bone tight thighs, his back coiled in a grand and defensive arch, his elbows gripped desperately at his ribs, pushing ever further inwards, never finding comfort. _Never finding comfort_.

 

“Ooooooh _Potter_!”

 

Bellatrix's cajoling voice echoed through the cell, and Harry curled around himself tighter, clenching his eyes shut. At least it was a choice to close his eyes, even if the darkness still remained outside his vision, at least it was a _choice_.

 

Her faint footsteps neared, but Harry knew that was for show. In all the unfathomable time he had spent in this cellar, Harry had not once heard another prisoner nor kind soul. The sound of footsteps echoing was a finely orchestrated trick – Harry was not to know anything about where he lived.

 

He slid down, lying prostrate in his puddle of blood, his nose pressed against the floor as his dear old Bellabee neared. There was something strangely lucid about this moment, as if Harry truly existed, but he couldn't trust it. Perhaps this was a trick within a trick, perhaps even his Bellatrix was not real. What if Harry were just a figment of someone's dream, a story, a character? What if none of this was real?

 

Breaths came hard in his chest, banging against his lungs, and Harry coiled tighter, hyperventilating into his knees. He felt her presence at the edge of the room, her figure casting shadows in the darkness to his squinting eyes. She whispered _lumos_ and the world shrieked in brightness. Harry was currently lying in his crapping corner, covered in faeces and blood and other unnamed horrors. He smelt rank, rancid and rotting, as if the true contents of his brain had spilled out.

 

Harry bit straight through his lip. The tension was always the worst, he never knew what she was going to do to him. Bellatrix had been forced by her own use of the sleeping spell to leave him be, thus he knew she would be especially cruel now.

 

“ _Look at me when I speak to you, Potty_.”

 

Harry obeyed, opening his eyes to watch her. She was majestic, truly, a beast, a beautiful gnarled creature from hell. Her hair was smooth and curled, he knew she took much pride in her appearance. Bellatrix, before her madness and old age, would have been a true beauty. But, it was less about her outer looks anyway, it was what was within her, the strength, the dark purity that came with insanity, the ambition. Harry, her greatest creation, shivering upon the floor, had been foreseen years ago in her mind. Bellatrix had drive, she possessed power, second only to Voldemort. She was the queen of herself – albeit the dark mark and constraints of her mind did hinder such to a degree.

 

Bellatrix placed her orb of _lumos_ directly overhead. She sneered in disgust at him, looking down on the shrivelled snivelling man-boy hybrid that flinched from her. Harry sent her a large smile, teeth showing, animalistic and driven by devotion. He huskily pronounced,

 

“My dear Bellabee, I love you so, more than anything in the world.”

 

Bellatrix, used to his drivel, sent a sharp flaying hex. Harry arched with pain, gasping on air, choked by it. She grinned maniacally, casting a barrage of cruel and gruesome hexes and jinxes until Harry convulsed, a withered malformed creature, breaths coming fast.

 

“Oh _dearie dearie Potter_ , I have _sooooooo_ missed you!”

 

Harry gave her a blood filled grin, nodding in acknowledgement as she cast the entrail-expelling curse, cackling wildly. Harry crawled, desperate and in an insane amount of pain, towards her, as if searching for help as his stomach opened up and someone's hand inserted itself inside, pulling out long lines of intestines like scarves from a magician's hat. He choked, hacking up his guts (semi-literally), and Bellatrix cast the counter very slowly with extreme precision. Harry's mind exploded with pain, and he felt the euphoria of tipping over the edge, his mind sparking, the line between extreme pleasure and agony greying until all that remained was intensity and certainty. He glided above, drunk on loose entrails.

 

“I've got a new spell Potter, made it _just for you_. I think you'll _really_ like it.”

 

Bellatrix's mouth was curled in a cruel grin, but Harry thought she looked rather fetching – blood dripping down her hands from where she had knelt and yanked organs, aiding the spell, hair frizzy with the ambient swirling magic sparking in the air, eyes wide and misted, Sirius' style of unclarity and disconnection from the world. It was as if he were in the presence of a goddess, and one cannot rebuke a goddess, for they are above the morals they preach, they are as guilty as mountains. They cannot help their grandeur and after effects as much as a mountain can help it when avalanches crush tiny inhabitants. It is a factor of life, and Bellatrix was one of those factors. She was a presence, irrefutable and unaccountable. It would be like pleading to the sky not to rain, you can plead all you like but the sky cannot deny its nature.

 

Bellatrix had forgone the use of her wand, leaving it behind her ear like a blood dipped pencil, before she knelt down beside him. Her teeth gleamed in the silver streaks of _lumos_ illumination, her face appeared pallid in the ghostly shine and Harry thought it may be a side effect of spending one's time predominantly in dungeons torturing. It would be hateful to consider his own complexion, especially considering he spent approximately _all known time_ underground without an iota of sun.

 

An image suddenly struck him of him and Bellatrix lying on fruity coloured resplendent towels at a muggle beach, getting tanned, whilst Voldemort swum in the surf with a large hot pink sun hat. Harry blinked, realising he had blanked out and that Bellatrix had covered their faces with blood, Harry's blood to be exact. It tingled on his skin, _maybe this was skin care_ Harry mused as he pondered the effectiveness as blood as a face mask, and felt magic begin to seep into him. His _own_ magic, which was up until this moment quiet and contemplative, lurched at the hit of alien power. Bellatrix seemed to read his discomfort, and tauntingly patted him on the head, as if Harry were nothing but a beloved pet.

 

“I made this spell _specially_ for you, Potter dearie, so you'd best appreciate it. It _should_ remove your magic, so fingers crossed.”  


Harry's eyes widened, now recognising the seeping blood ritual and its effects on his normally timid magical compadre. He felt himself gasping (whilst also crossing his fingers because Bellabee was his _love_ and sometimes you had to _compromise_ in relationships), coughs blooming like pustules in his chest, as this putrid magic burrowed deep down into his own. Harry's eyes crossed with pain, feeling as if a lengthy bone splitting spike had been wedged deep down in his chest. It speared him straight through. He was a living skewer, a chicken satae stick ready for Bellatrix's consumption. Harry let out a delirious giggle, doped up on extreme excruciatingly horrible pain, and Bellatrix patted him on the head again. He leaned in, feeling his magic thrumming in his skin.

 

“ _Et simul abierunt_.”

 

Bellatrix whispered the words, magic flowing through from her hand into his scalp. Harry shivered, a sickly feeling dripping down his shoulders, but continued to inch nearer to his dearest Bella. He longed for human affection, any contact would do, even some with his apparent jailer.

 

They were in love, after all, exceptions could be made to hard and fast moral stipulations.

 

His eyelids began to feel very heavy, and the last thing he glimpsed before unconsciousness stole him away was a manic gleam in Bellatrix's eyes and the words “ _magic be mine_.”

 

…

 

Harry ached, his stomach felt dastardly split as if someone had driven a large spear through it or pulled out his intestines. _Bellabee did both_ whispered a sibilant voice in his head, but Harry ignored it. Voices were a familiar, perhaps vital, part of being a prisoner of mad Death Eaters – they were a balm for insanity or perhaps a symptom of it.

 

There was a foreign tightness of his body, as if all the skin had become stretched and new. The air smelt off colour, it choked him in his throat, but he dared not move. This was, no doubt, another one of Bellatrix's marvellous tricks. So treacherous that it became a masterpiece, a musical, a beautiful sculpture of which Harry were only a small bendable piece of.

 

A feel of a breath echoed over his body, and Harry stilled utterly and completely. He was a statue, a stagnant silhouette in the ether.  If he clenched his eyes shut, if he dared not move a muscle, then whoever he felt panting on his body would disappear into a ghostly figment of nothing. Perhaps it was only the wind. Perhaps he was in luck.

 

Innumerable years with his sweet Bellabee had taught him there was no such thing as actual reprieve, and Harry braced himself for a wild and chaotic symphony of horror; his body loosening in order to better absorb any potential blows that may spur from this new antagonist of his life. He was quite adept at relaxing every muscle, he'd been trained in this line of work, after all, even if he lacked any other credentials. A spurt of dark humour welled in his gut as he imagined finally following his dream career as an Auror; with his training he would most likely stiffen like a corpse and play dead come any interaction with a hostile entity. He envisioned a looming husk of boggart shadowing over his prone figure, sucking out his soul whist he just lay there, frozen and insensate.

 

He laughed in his mind, a cackle that echoed with strains of Bellatrix's fanatical shrill humorous shrieks. Harry thought, as the breathing on his stiff form turned to hyperventilation as if whatever deformed creature that had discovered him was falling head first into a panic, that this may be what true joy was; this escape into mad monkey grins.

 

The breathing of this foreign figure escalated, ratcheted up a notch or seven. It was as if someone had stolen the breath from them, as if their lungs were caving in. Harry wondered what kind of new dream this was from that trickster spell – it wasn’t often that it played the long road. The relationship with Draco – his heart still stung as he thought of long nights with his boyfriend, or, _not really your boyfriend_ – had been settled rather early, meaning giving in was easier due to the sheer beatific peaceful nature of the dream. Yet, occasionally the dream spell liked a challenge; it liked to fully convince Harry that this was reality, that he was firmly placed in reality. It smelt like a trick, that was certain, seeing as the dream had moved into the dungeon. His dearest Bellatrix had, of course, only been a dream, meaning he had never truly awoken yet. He just had to ride this out. That’s all he had to do – ride out the endless waves of suffering, misery, pleasure and heart shattering.

 

He kept his eyes closed and thought of a safe place. It was perhaps peculiar that his safe space, his mental sanctuary, was back in the dungeon, the place of his habitual torture; in Bellabee’s arms, sliced down the middle, encompassed in the _honest_ mad gleam of her Sirius-silver irises. He loved that place; for the light of the Cruciatus, the mind-bending agony that struck him blind with pained satisfaction, for the knowledge that with pain comes truth, with pain comes a halting of fabrications, the tissues of dreams are torn away and all that remains is love and passion and his and Bellatrix’s tears coalescing in a lover’s ballad, a sonnet of the stars. They were made for each other, carved with each other’s names in mind, bespoke and begot by the heavens themselves, writ in grime and brimstone by Voldemort’s very eyes.

 

Madness was not a state of mind. Madness was a place. _Their_ place.

 

Harry gathered his courage and finally opened his eyes.

 

The first thing to notice was the white; it stretched out, pure and unsoiled, untrodden and clean, like a fresh blanket of nothing, numbing all wounds. The sky was white. The ground was white. His skin was pale, white, like a polar bear’s pelt cast in such a light that it was indistinguishable from the sodden undisclosed earth. The only spectre out of place in this heavenly scene was the tightly strung girl adorned in a baby blue hospital gown.

 

She held violet eyes, the kind that seared into your soul with betrayal, as if she had looked at you and had realised every crime you had ever even considered. Harry thought of all the lives which had ceased under his hands, directly or not so, he thought of Tom Riddle screaming in his primeval animalistic manner as his soul was entrenched in oblivion. He thought of his mother, for a split second, but this girl’s arresting eyes returned him to reality.

 

He knew it was a girl; the hospital gown left little to the imagination. And, he knew this _girl_ was not a _woman_ by the fear carved into her expression; she exuded delicacy, as if a stiff breeze would topple her. Her breathing choked her for breath, yet Harry watched on, unsympathetic. He had lost a sense of sympathy years ago, in the hands of an ebony haired woman.

 

The girl didn’t seem to realise the state of his open eyes if her next words were any indicator for the situation. She scrabbled at his bare skin, small and tight as it appeared to be, as if he were a T-shirt that had been shrunk in the wash, and whispered, terrified and oh so small, “Deceased? Deceased?”

Harry thought it a funny thing to say to someone. He closed his eyes, holding his breath, taunting her with his own demise. He wondered if she would be blamed for his death in the cold. He wondered if they would throw her into Askaban. Would they tell her who she had killed? Would they reward her, instead, with a first class plane ticket to an honoured reservation of future Death Eater?

 

She spoke so lowly as her hands trailed his skin that if they didn’t live in such deathly silence no one could have heard. Her fingers dug deep into his neck, she was pulled taut with tension, her face a gamely red as air still evaded her passage. Relief flooded through her veins viscerally; he saw it as she slumped forward as if shoved ruthlessly. She said, not daring to breathe, “Heart beating; 45 beats per minute.”

 

She pressed her ear against his chest, as if listening to the vacuum. Harry thought maybe she wouldn’t hear anything, maybe Bella had already stolen his heart from him.

 

A further “Breathing; present yet laboured.” escaped her lips. She sat back on her haunches, clearly lost. She shut her eyes and tried to think. Harry winked open a single eye and caught a glimpse of her pose of concentration. He clenched his muscles as he attempted to appear corpse like; _I must want for nothing_.

 

The girl must have centred herself, for the next thing heard by Harry’s perked ears was a most assured, “Check breathing passage for obstruction.” She leaned down and slid open his jaw. The cold flush of air felt strange on his tongue. He wondered if this girl may steal his first kiss, like Ginny had never gotten the chance to, as she came so close to his mouth that he breathed in her escaping air. Would Bellatrix care if he told her? Dream Draco had stolen much more than a kiss, but maybe if he told her she would stop this particular torture, maybe she could see that it was _enough_.

 

“Unobstructed,” she noted.

 

Harry let a wicked grin grace his lips and intended to shock the girl with a sliced in, “I’m quite a pain, aren’t I?”

 

As he slitted open an eye, he watched in wonder as the once astute medical extraordinaire flinched back. She was lost as he gave her the evil eye, a look he had learned from intense focus on Rodolphus’ torture/bedroom eyes. He reminisced, envisioning the live and well Death Eater in the midst of his speciality – knife torture. It was Rodolphus’ art; to do Harry up all nice and pretty, festooned in curls of shed blood, slashes that marked his prize and declared him yet another owned by Lestrange blood. It was their favourite dance together, whist the wifey was away. His grin darkened enough to incite another blaring full-body jig from the girl, as he considered that perhaps Rodolphus beheld jealousy for him and Belladear.

 

_But, who were you jealous of, Bellatrix or me?_

 

“S-status?” The girl stuttered out.

 

Harry cocked his head, “Confused.”

 

She cocked hers in return. He decided he liked her, maybe she could be the new love interest that the dream spell no doubt desired. She even had the nurse cliché down pat already. She elaborated, although appeared to mirror his puzzlement, “Clarity; inform myself Junior Five-Oh-Five of rank and allocated number.”

 

Thoughts tumbled unbidden in the deep depravities of Harry’s mind. _That_ hadn’t cleared anything up.

 

He had a sneaking suspicion of ulterior pieces at play. Her diction was just so strange, and she was _too_ young to speak with such eloquence. His eyes flickered around the wasteland of snow. He swivelled his head to the drowned-cat girl, covered in wet snow as she was, appearing soaked through. He inquired, almost bored by the dear dreamy eyed magic spell’s dreary games by now,

 

“What year is it?”

 

“Year; Date; Time?”

 

Harry blinked.

 

“Yes. Year, date, whatever.”

 

She blinked, as if his behaviour was utterly bizarre and not understandable in the slightest. _Does not compute_ Harry sniggered in his mind.

 

She turned to her wrist, he couldn’t see it from his prone position on the ground but he assumed she had a watch of some kind. Her eyes flashed with sudden luminescence; in that moment he knew she was a muggle. She revealed his current displacement, her words unstrained and completely monotone, fear having drained from her,

 

“2056; 13th of October; 14:23.”

 

 _Holy fucking shit on a pancake_. Harry cackled to the wind. Oh, it was _on_ dream-spell, it was _on_.

 

Let the games begin.

 

....................

 

“Status.”

 

The monotone rumble of the computer generated voice slid over Harry’s skin like cool water. He shivered, stubbornly remaining silent. He had been in this strange new dream world for all of twenty minutes, and already he did declare that it was a big fat ol’ ball of shit on a stick. He may be traumatised from overexposure to Bellababy and co., but he still held a semblance of sanity; enough to know that this was _not normal_.

 

First, what was with the white?

 

Everything, from head to toe, from ceiling to floor, from depressing sky to sodden earth, was achingly white. Pale. Cream. Egg-white. Whatever variant of the aforementioned shade was accepted in this oddball dystopian future he had been dropped in – quite literally from the sky itself if “Junior Five-Oh-Five”’s woolly words were to be believed. The slip of a girl, whose concave girth could easily find itself astray in the crevasse of a chain-link fence – she was deceptively thin – had rattled on in this alien code language upon Harry’s awakening. Junior, as he had taken to mentally calling her, gained increasing levels of concern over his lack of overall knowledge of “ _The_ _Grid_ ”; the name of this bizarre society as she had explained. Harry had barely understood her disjointed Protospeak, but had gathered as much through sheer will and experience via hours of trying to translate Dudley’s Eggspeak (when his cousin blabbered on vital information of the Dursley hierarchy with a mouth overflowing with scrambled egg).

 

Second, _The Grid_? How cliché. How utterly predictable. Leave it to the robots to overthrow mankind and name their newly enforced civilisation an absolutely banal and forgettable title.

 

Third, where were the bathrooms in this place?

 

Junior had taken his hand and led him through the endless slopes of snow, stridently stampeding her way with more strength than one would expect from a girl who looked about as sturdy as a glass vase hanging over a canyon by a frayed lip of yarn. Her outwardly weak form had, of course, lulled Harry into a false sense of security, considering her his sweet innocent would-never-lead-me-into-untold-dangers love interest for this dabble in dreamland; thus the raven had been flabbergasted once introduced to the _true_ reality of his situation.

 

Rising out of the white abyss surrounding them had been a giant pearl-coloured cube; so shiny that the sun blinded him, reflected off its many surfaces. Junior had appeared unsurprised, and through his bafflement had dragged his sorry behind through the ominously lone double doors perched at the very bottom central point of _The Cube_.

 

After abandoning him to very sharp spiky looking machines, Junior had not even spared him a goodbye before disappearing into the labyrinth of _The Cube_. Harry, alone now and completely overwhelmed, had enthusiastically lost himself in his mental safe-space; reliving a particularly delightful spanking session with Belladarling. Around him the futuristic robots that vaguely resembled walking toilets, equipped with seats as faces that lifted every time they spoke and large rotund cumbersome bodices, had shepherded him past what had apparently been an incredibly sparse waiting room.

 

He was plopped down on a couch, shaped like a pair and quite literally embodying his life at this moment, and suddenly realised with a sickening growl/whine of his crushing bladder that question number three was of the utmost importance. Harry winced, but remained silent. He peered through his frosty bangs the robot who had growled, “Status,” in his direction. This one didn’t hold the likeness of a toilet, but instead encapsulated a soft pink Carebear plushie. It was creepy, however, for its voice sounded like The Terminator. All of a sudden, Harry deeply regretted the life choices that had brought him up to this point, and simultaneously lamented ever secretly watching _Poltergeist_ whilst Dudley had been out for a sleepover.

 

 _Shitty shit shit_ , he thought as the eerie Carebear twisted its head towards him and asked in that horrifying voice,

 

“Status.”

 

Harry, once again, remained unspoken, no doubt giving this living nightmare a good deal of grief. Huh, maybe he was crazy – insert insane Bellatrix-inspired cackle – but he _didn’t_ make it a hobby to answer to stuffed death bears. Maybe he still had some morals, after all.

 

The Carebear, now creepily still, flashed its eyes at him. Harry watched on, petrified, stuck to the spot. It was as if he were a witness of a heinous traffic collision, except one of the drivers had been a feather stuffed evil robot and Harry was wearing a really tight skin suit that lacked an abundance of scarring.

 

The staring contest lasted approximately a minute, before Mr. Bear changed its tune,

 

“Clarity; inform myself Therapy Droid Seventeen-Unit-Four of rank and allocated number.”

 

Harry blinked. _This_ abomination was a _therapy_ droid?

 

The fuck.

He kept his lips zipped, wondering if Therapy Droids felt pain or anguish or frustration or any emotion at all.

 

Carebear Therapy Monstrosity fell into a dial tone, as if it were calling someone (something?) and Harry sat, shuffling with held in bathroom-related-bodily-functions, on the stiff plain vinyl stool, not daring to breathe let alone move.

 

The tone rung out twice before the door opened and a fucking _Carebear on wheels_ entered the room. Carebear 1 – who was coincidentally pink – conversed with Carebear 2 – a pale green superior officer, presented as such by their cute spiffy captain’s hat.

 

Pinky began, voice completely mechanic without any hints of emotion, “Consult; Unresponsive; Mutism?” Pinky raised its inflection at the end, no doubt to signify a question.

 

Greeny whirred in the following silence, processing the inquiry, and Harry looked on bewitched at what madness he had been sunk into this time. Greeny replied, “Accord; Protocol 1-4 A.”

 

Pinky ended their delightful conversation with a succinct, “Consensus,” before turning back to its wall-staring. Greeny rolled forward on its wheels, and Harry hysterically thought – face now red from not breathing whatsoever – _oh no they’re moving, they’re evolving?!_

 

Another dial tone ricocheted in the room, this one ringing out three times before the toilets revved themselves into the room. Harry was manhandled out of the therapy office, and the gaggle of machines travelled in an orderly pattern; one at the front (Greeny) with three behind (Toilet 1, Harry, Toilet  2). Harry stumbled, scraping his little stubby knees on the white hospital-esque linoleum, desperate to keep up and not break both legs.

 

As his bladder whined once more Harry thought it was hilarious that he was surrounded by robot-toilets yet could use none of them. _Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink._

 

Escorted into an identical therapy’s office, Harry reflected that this was not how he had envisioned taking on therapy – rather he had imagined that if he ever did luck out and escape Death Eater clutches he would visit a Mind Healer. _Therapy is truly going down the toilet_ he laughed internally, keeping his outershell a serene sea of blankness.

 

The two toilets evacuated the room. Harry squeezed his legs together, unspeakably uncomfortable, and eyed Greeny as the superior teddy of doom wheeled itself around. The green Carebear settled opposite to him, and Harry met its eyes warily.

 

“Status.”

 

Consequent to Harry’s expected non-answer, Greeny switched things up a bit. He – _face_ _it_ , Harry needed to humanize these creatures before he plotted their demise; hence a gendered Greeny – magnanimously donated a slide of blue gridded paper and flat black marker to Harry. Harry gripped the pen, sliding his hands over the very _real_ feeling utensil, before staring fathomlessly into the endless tunnels within the aqua paper.

 

“Inquiry; J-D; Ability; Print?”

 

Harry glanced up at Greeny, consumed by dubiety. He cocked his head. Apparently Greeny was advanced enough to comprehend bodily cues and expanded, “Clarity; Colloquialism; Does John Doe know how to write?”

 

Harry nodded.

 

Greeny persisted, “Instruction; J-D; Protocol 2-5-4 C.”

 

Harry stared listlessly. He was beginning to truly hate this weird society.

 

The Carebear, intelligent monster that it was, had begun to learn of Harry’s illiteracy in relation to Protospeak, and continue on with their “therapy session” using “colloquialism” – the name for “inefficient” human language from before the instating of _The Grid_. In other words, Greeny dumbed it down for Harry because he was a foreigner.

 

Insulting.

 

“Clarity; Colloquialism; John Doe should now write from (Protocol 2-3-4 C); _state rank and allocated number_.”

 

Harry stared mournfully at the blue paper. He felt as if he was going to fail this test.

 

Greeny looked no different, evidently not experiencing any of Harry’s harried feelings, and spoke once more into the never ending sadness of Harry’s mind, “Superseded Inquiry; Colloquialism; Has John Doe (Protocol 2-5-4 A); _be(en) given rank and allocated number_.”

 

Harry shook his head, a lurching sensation almost capsizing him. If he didn’t have a rank or number would they eat him or something? Were these zombie computers?

 

Greeny whirred softly in his standing position. Harry wondered if Greeny had a wife and children, little spritely Carebear kiddies racing amok at home. Did computers feel love? Greeny’s eyes flashed, and he injected his robotic register into the solemnity of the barren room, “Superseded Instruction; Colloquialism; John Doe should now write (Protocol 3-2 A); _place of origin_.”

 

Harry wasn’t sure Surrey, England was the desired response (nor a magical castle smuggled away in a forbidden isle of Scotland, nor a cavernous prison where his soul had been shredded in which the destination had never been given), so instead scrawled a haggard scrawny half-starved question mark onto his pristine sheet of blankness. Greeny collected it, and appeared to stare at it for a long time, scanning over his symbol. He leant back on his robot wheels and contemplated; or at least that’s what Harry liked to believe. He wanted to think that Greeny wasn’t a mindless Droid. He was kind of growing on Harry, he _was_ a Carebear creepy voice aside and that garnered at least an 8 on the adorability scale.

 

“Superseded Announcement; Colloquialism; M-C-N; Main Computer Network has (Protocol 1-2-1 A); _given rank and allocated number_ to John Doe. Superseded Instruction; Colloquialism; John Doe should now listen and (Protocol 2-1-1 B); _remember_ rank and allocated number. Superseded Announcement; Colloquialism; Rank is Undecided and Number is Ten-Oh-Nine.”

 

The dial tone went off once again, like a police siren echoing out into busy UK city streets. Harry’s head submerged in the waters off the past, images of the London Eye and his old home in Surrey flickering past. He was swimming, not breathing. He had lost his footing in the present.

Two toilets rushed into the room, he wasn’t sure if they were the same ones from ealier and it mattered little. All toilets seemed the same – just mindless robots hell-bent on carting him about any which way they pleased. They swept him into their arms and locomoted him away from Greeny and out into the wilderness of _The Cube_. He watched the dullness of Greeny’s eyes as the door slammed shut. The hallways fizzled with his smarts, the world was doused in nonsensical glitters, and he had already forgotten the nothing of Greeny’s office by the time the toilets had corralled him to his latest destination. Would he ever see that beloved maniac of a Carebear again?

 

His last thought before he was shoved into a brand new room, empty as was customary of _The Cube_ so far, bar a slab of sheeted foam on the ground and toilet dug out in the linoleum, was that he had never gotten to _inquire_ about Greeny’s own name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quote from Samuel Taylor’s famous “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”.


End file.
